


Secretary

by starcrossedlovers



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: AU, Age Difference, BDSM, Comedy, Dom/sub, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Master/Pet, OCD, OOC, Psychology, Romance, Self-Harm, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 23:10:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcrossedlovers/pseuds/starcrossedlovers
Summary: Ciel suffers from a certain kind of disorder but decides to work for the lawyer Mr. Michaelis. It turns out that he is also not that simple and even helps his subordinates in a very peculiar way...A translation of "Секретарь" by Ада Воронцова.





	Secretary

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Секретарь](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/510025) by Ада Воронцова.. 

> Thank you for allowing me to translate this! Enjoy!

In June, the noon sun is positively hungry because it keeps clinging to Ciel’s slim legs. And while his knee socks are white, not black, he still has to continually pull them up.

In search of a shadow, the young boy sits down under a branchy acacia tree on his dark blue suitcase. The grasshoppers seem to have gone crazy too, you could only hear them. If you closed your eyes, you would be able to imagine yourself at some kind of surrealistic concert. In such scorching heat, the only thing needed is the sound of babbling water.

Ciel tries to relax, but he cannot stop picking at the edges of his blazer and pulling his knee socks up over and over again. From the high concentration of medication in his organism, he began having a slight allergy to the sun. A little more of that ultraviolet light, and his skin is going to itch too: because of his nervous restlessness, he naturally forgot to put on sunscreen.

His mother is late, but he, for some reason, expected that it was going to be her who is going to wait, not the opposite way.

Doctor Levitz even came outside to say goodbye to his patient, and, before retreating to the building of the private clinic, he hugged him and wished him good luck.

“Don’t forget everything we talked about.”

“The three rabbits, yes. I remember them. Acceptance. Concentration. Approval.”

They changed the expression “three wales” to one with more pleasant and adorable animals for fun. Animals that do not oppress you with their massiveness, since reliability doesn’t equal size.

And Ciel actually doesn’t like the sea.

“Breathing. Do not forget breathing.”

“Thank you, Doctor Levitz. I'm even going to miss our sessions.”

“Take care, Ciel. I hope we are not going to meet again at this place, please do try at least.”

“I will not get here anymore.”

“That’s the correct way of thinking.”

Still, when the doctor vanished out of sight, it felt as if snails crept along the walls of Ciel’s stomach: the certainty that Phantomhive won’t find himself here anymore shrunk to the size of a pistachio.

A white pickup truck stops on the road, and a woman in a light blue sundress and snow-white sandals gets out of it. She inspects the building itself at first and doesn’t immediately notice the tree hidden in the shadow.

“Hello dear!” Rachel embraces her son. There are many contradictions in her movements, she doesn’t know whether she should strangle him in her tight grip or whether it would be better not to invade his personal space. It doesn’t mean a lot to overly introverted people; that’s at least what Mrs. Phantomhive read somewhere. She has been reading an awful lot about this lately.

A fragrant melon and the flowers of an orange tree. The familiar summer perfumes of mother. It already seems to Ciel that he has arrived back home.

“There will be soup with trickled pastries, just how you like it, for dinner. Lasagna. You love it too, right?

Rachel is somehow not sure what she is saying. It’s probably going to be like that for a long time – that uncertainty in everything concerning her younger son.

Ciel gives his mother a calming smile. On Rachel’s cheek, together with a spot of sunlight, plays a shadow of an earring in the form of a bird’s feather. It has the same colour as her sundress and, of course, her eyes.

When they get into the car, Rachel offers Ciel a bottle of mineral water, bought on the road if one suddenly feels thirsty, and actually: “The summer promises to be a hell-fire. This kind of heat has not been observed in a long time; it’s good that you are in shorts. By the way, we renovated our pool, so we will now have our own rescuing oasis.”

They enter the main road, joining the stream of cars. The habitual city bustle, from which the teenager managed to grow unaccustomed to over a few months, carries him away.

“Have you already decided what you are going to do?” Rachel inquires. She is constantly tapping her fingers on the steering wheel; Ciel pretends not to notice the movements. In the clinic, the majority of the patients had a tendency to neurotic gestures, so Ciel got used to it. Of course, Rachel is not like these people, but the movements still give her away, just like the strained turn of her neck.

“I would like to attend a secretarial course and find a job.”

Ciel had a lot of time to contemplate his plan of action for the future, and, considering his capabilities, there was no doubt left.

Obviously, the wife of a successful businessman would not want to hear this kind of answer from her offspring. Being a secretary is not on the level of the Phantomhives. But Rachel does not show that she has to remind herself that it’s not easy for Ciel right now. Every day, she asks herself what she did wrong when the twins were growing up.

_“I’m not a bad mother, not a bad one. I did everything I could, didn’t I?”_

“This sounds great! Yes, I definitely like this idea; I’m sure that everyone else is going to react like that too.”

The voice of his mother is tense; that’s why she compensates the sound of it with a depiction, a wide, dazzling smile. Sometimes Ciel thinks that one of the most useful skills—to smile beautifully and correctly—was given to the kids by Rachel for sure. Even Father has a long way to go to get on the level of Mrs. Phantomhive. He wonders why, maybe Mother has to put more effort into uniting all of the members. Anyway, she has given her blood, sweat, and tears into the skill.

Ciel does not want to think about how his father and Gabriel are going to react. Acceptance. Concentration. Approval. ACA in abbreviated form. Three rabbits, of which only one is a rabbit; the other two are fluffy beasts. The rabbit Concentration is surrounded by them, but has not broken down. The fluffy beasts, Acceptance and Approval, are scary, uncontrollable animals, and it is necessary to control them. It absolutely has to be done. Ultimately, if you allow the rabbit to be itself, then it is going to understand that A and A are him. Three innocent fluffy rabbits. Three separate pieces of a whole.

Doctor Levitz sometimes talked to his patients as if they were kids, caused by his long employment in clinics for children, but this manner of speaking actually calmed Ciel.

Everyone in his family was too serious. And too smiley.

***

“Welcome back home, Ciel!” says the creme-coloured sign over the threshold of the house. Everything is filled with balloons, they look as if they are covered with vegetable oil, that’s how much they glisten. On the courtyard of the Phantomhive family, there had been a party organised in honour of the return of their son. It seems that guests had been invited, unrecognisable figures were gathered at the pool.

It’s too late to get ready.

“Make yourself look good and return to us, fine? Everyone wants to see you.” Rachel nudges her son in the back towards the stairs and enters the yard through the backdoor in the kitchen.

Ciel carries his suitcase to his room upstairs. Along the way, he looks at the pictures that hang in oval frames on the wall. Right here Gabriel caught his first fish. And it’s unimportant that it’s a catfish the size of a baby sock. And here’s a three-year-old boy with cheeks as red as a beetroot who is crying over a cake with candles. And it’s not understandable why he is crying and who hurt him: his cheeks seem to be artificial, they are so bright as if a gaggle of geese pinched them insistently for a long time. Of course, if a boy is crying, then it’s Ciel, there’s no guessing here, but he doesn’t remember this situation.

In the next rectangular photo, his mother and father are at their own wedding. Under a wedding arch, against the background of a pond with swans. A striking couple, Ciel would even say that they are glamorous. Both are smiling, and it is already noticeable how his mother's smile is more professional than that of his father. Ciel does not want to use the word "professional" when describing his family, but a different option does not cross his mind.

The first words - associations - are the most sincere, though they may seem absurd and even pretentious. _"Why do I feel so awful about my family?”_

Guilt.

“Let me say some words to you," said Dr. Levitz, "and you will answer me with the word that first comes to your mind without hesitating. Let's start. Eyes.”

“Mars.”

“Hand.”

“Glove.”

“Smile.”

“Thorn.”

“Sincerity.”

“Storm.”

“Falseness.”

“Famine.”

“Embrace.”

“Underdevelopment.”

“Embryo.”

“Goo. I mean something amoebic.”

Ciel's bedroom has remained unchanged. A large bed in front of a wide window, a desk, an empty aquarium. A model of a star hanging from the ceiling and a pterodactyl, piles of magazines everywhere.

His twin is sitting on the bed. He looks at the music box which their grandmother gave to her grandchildren on their fifth birthday. There used to be two boxes, but Gabriel broke his box many years ago.

“It has such a pleasant melody. I'm sorry that I am in your room, but I just had a dream about the box today. Probably means something. What do you think?” He awkwardly gets up and puts the box back on the shelf where it was.

The light suitcase in his hand suddenly seems impossible to carry. Ciel releases the handle and straightens his back. The way Gabriel tries to hide the surprise in his eyes - even their mother's and father's smile doesn't help - causes Ciel to shiver.

Sympathy.

Of course, he hasn't seen him in a different way yet. After that incident, Ciel asked Gabriel not to show up at the hospital and not to see him during therapy. It seemed to be better for both of them, for everyone knew what had happened. But they didn't understand it. It just seemed obvious to Ciel.

"Could you give your brother a hug who missed you so much?" Gabriel's hands seem stronger than usual. The twin is drenched in Elizabeth's scents: her shampoo, soap, perfume. Perhaps it only seems to Ciel that way, as well as the fact that the twin hasn't been with him for a long time. Their happy, serene childhood is over. Gabriel accepted Father's new baton, and Ciel... Ciel is still confusedly looking around. He misunderstood everything in life. He set his priorities wrong.

“I’m happy for you, Ciel. Now everything will be different, everything will be fine.”

"Yes, a fresh start."

Downstairs, the twins are greeted by Gabriel's girlfriend Elizabeth. A cute blonde, somehow similar to Rachel. She is wearing a pink overall today.

Ciel accepts her embrace.

“Hi," he smiles at her.

"We missed you so much, and you look great! Come on, let's see everyone!"

The very closest people are visiting, his family's friends.

Father is grilling steaks in a kitchen apron. When he sees Ciel, he gets distracted and goes out to meet him.

"Hello Ciel." They tightly wrap their arms around each other, Vincent pats his son's forearm.

“Hi Dad.”

“I wanted to pick you up, but Rachel was ahead of me. She snatched the keys out of my hands and ran away, and only we saw her. So that was that, son.”

"The early bird catches the worm!" Ciel’s mom winks at him.

“You're getting the juiciest and most delicious piece,” Vincent wants to put a steak on a plate for Ciel, but he is cleverly outpaced by Rachel.

"Here you go, honey!" The mother not only pours tomato sauce over it and adds a vegetable salad, but also meets Vincent's resentful look with charming bellicosity.

“I haven't eaten in a hundred years," says Ciel, inhaling the hot aroma of grilled meat and smiling at his parents' childishness. Before giving him a glass of champagne, Rachel asks whether it is okay for Ciel to drink alcohol, in other words, whether he is taking medication. Although Dr. Levitz has assured her that everything is fine, but...

“Yes, it is. I don't take anything anymore.”

“That's wonderful, dear. Let's drink to you! Oh, I'm so glad you're back with us! I am not dreaming, am I?”

Everyone raises their glasses and drinks to his return.

They discuss the weather. The swimming pool. Someone's trip to Africa and the time a lion almost ate someone during a Safari tour.

Ciel walks around the yard, observing his family. Gabriel whispers something to Elizabeth while looking at his brother and smiling.

“I also missed you.”

“Ciel?” The voice comes from behind. The young boy did not even notice the presence of someone, they were successfully blended in with the azalea bush and the shadows. During the whole time, it seemed that he had not seen anyone.

It's a young man who is five years older than CIel. Above average height, thinner than average, brown hair. There is something elusive slipping through the soft and simple features of his face. The stranger is waiting for a question.

“I’m Wordsmith. Arthur. We were classmates during high school.”

Ciel immediately remembers the freckled, kind boy. With him, he saved the chicks of a sparrow from a cat and plucked the leaves of trees in search of caterpillars for them.

“Wow, you've grown, Arthur! You were even shorter than I was back in school. I would not have recognized you!”

“When my hormones changed, I started growing a lot. But you haven't changed a lot.”

Ciel is significantly shorter.

“Did you move back?”

“Turns out there's no place better than home. Well... I work in a store as an optician, assisting my aunt.”

“And when did you come back?”

“Three months ago. I met Gabriel on the street, but I knew he wasn't you.” _“Well, now we're sure not to be confused with each other,"_ Ciel thinks. "He said he'd let me know when you get back. So... now I'm here. And I'm happy to see you again."

“Me too, Arthur. Thank you for coming. I’m very happy.”

Arthur's grinning. His shy, childish smile makes Ciel remember one more thing: as a boy, Arthur confessed his love to him and gave him bubbles in a bottle as a gift.

“Arthur, are you still with the bubbles? I mean... I didn't mean to ask like that, God…”

The man quietly laughs and nods:

“I get it. Bubbles. I remember... Of course! Yes. Yes... I do. That doesn't change... And you look good.”

“Thank you, you look fine too.”

Ciel smiles: no, for all that, Arthur has changed only physically, and that makes him happy.

Little Ciel spent the entire evening blowing bubbles and smiling from ear to ear, and the next day he triumphantly handed Arthur the toad he had caught, but that was another story. Alas, the toad was caught by the children, blown up with a straw and exploded. Arthur was depressed for a week. After that incident, he wanted to become a veterinarian, but apparently he never became one. His life led him to ocular matters and... to the one-eyed Phantomhive.

“And it... it doesn't ruin you. _"It."_ While Arthur wants to be tactful, he still remains cute. “I wanted to suggest that I could order you a pretty eye patch. Don't worry, it's nothing like that, it's just... there's a difference between a bandage and a nice eye patch.”

"So I can look like a pirate?" Ciel winks at him. He often forgets that he only has one eye, so it seems to everyone that he is just blinking strangely. "Like Captain Blood?"

Gabriel catches everyone's attention by knocking against his champagne glass with a dessert fork.

“Could I have everyone’s attention for a minute?”

He and Elizabeth have occupied the place at the flower bed with blue and pink petunias. The colors of the couple.

"We're all here to welcome my brother. My dear brother Ciel. I want to say... where is he? There he is, Ciel." The young man raises his glass and winks at him. So this is someone who is good at it.

"I want to say, brother, that I missed you like hell, I think like everyone else here. Please know that I love you, brother. Please drink to Ciel, everyone!”

And everybody does. Fleeting champagne bubbles rise to everyone's nostrils, Ciel has long since abandoned his plate with a cut, but not eaten steak.

But there's more to the speech. Ciel understands this from the look in his eyes.

“Also, I'd like to use this opportunity, since everyone's here already, to make an announcement…”

Everybody stands still. Ciel looks for his parents: judging by the way Rachel's hands are clutching her chest, she's got a hunch.

Ciel has a stomach ache. He has a tight grip on his glass as if it would help him stay on the ground. As if it would be necessary.

“Elizabeth and I decided to get married. We will have the wedding in autumn already.”

Cheering. The couple celebrates the news with a tender kiss.

Even now. Even one single day. Everything belongs to Gabriel again.

The entire happy life of the twins, divided exactly in two, is a myth in Gabriel's hands.

Ciel has nowhere to go. He is like a chameleon, like Arthur, merging with the shadows of the azaleas.

Rachel's laughter, Father's clap on his eldest son's shoulder, the congratulations. The roar of voices. The ruckus.

Everything starts with the neck, it begins to tremble first, then the vibration passes through his arms and legs. There is nothing to cling to with his resonant, glassed fingers: everything in the world is slippery, fickle, blurry, two-faced.

A smile.

_"Hang on."_

Breathing.

"Darlings, we've been waiting so long for this! I'm so happy for you!”

His skin is covered with cold, sticky sweat, and then his legs carry him upstairs by themselves. It seems that there is a threat from all around: an irrational, vibrant, nonsleeping cloud, destroying his own self and identity. Something unimaginable. There is no reason to be afraid, but the fear is absolute.

Ciel tries to count, if not the number of his breaths, then the number of steps. He doesn't exactly remember how he finds himself in his bedroom, but he slams the door shut, gets under the bed, and curls up into a lump.

The embryo pose. He was in this pose in Rachel's womb when the accident happened: two instead of one. Gabriel must be next door. Or, on the contrary, it would be better if there wasn't a second one.

The three rabbits. Breathing. Count your breaths.

There's a cold sweat on his skin. His existence seems to be ridiculous and a nightmarish joke, everything is a dream. Is this really happening?

To hell with Gabriel. Let him take that day too. Just let him, it’s all right. We did this a thousand times, right?

_"You're always exaggerating, Ciel. You can't do that... It's... just impossible, unbearable! What have I done to you? Of the two of us, you're the one who is always trying to get attention!”_

Ciel forces himself out of the cocoon position and reaches out to the cherished spot among the boxes hidden under the bed.

The hideaway was never supposed to be found, so he did his best to ensure that. One of the floorboards gives in to his fingers, revealing a hole. At the bottom of it, there is a metal box. Ciel knows each of its rough edges and ridges by heart, as well as the traces of rust.

He crawls out with the treasure into the light. A striped container for Moon Drop tea, Grandma loved this brand.

On the blanket, he places a knife for the paper, a chess figurine - the white queen - sandpaper, a bolt, a wrench, a crow feather, metal, a sharp wire. There were many more things, a whole museum of the younger twin's childhood, but Ciel once forced himself to get rid of half of it.

He can work only with the queen today. Just the queen. Ciel will not do this regularly, he will only fight fire with fire and forget about it.

It would be better to throw this box away entirely. Yes, he will do just that, but first, the queen.

He calls her Victoria.

Victoria means victory.

She conquers any impulsive outbursts and turmoil, soothes the pain and cleanses it.

She's almost a saint. Ciel plays chess very well, so she is a special instrument for his ritual.

Ciel pulls down the knee sock on his right leg and, without thinking about it, cuts his skin with the sharpened crown. He sharpened the head of the figure some time ago. It can be twisted or it can be rotated in a circular motion or simply...

Today, the sharp end cuts through his skin. A line. The pressure point. The other line is lower. The pressure point again.

Ciel makes three lines and five dots.

Only five.

_"If you don't make five dots, but, say, only three equal to the number of lines, something bad will happen. Irreparable. Absolute." _How does he know? He just does.

_"Gabriel will get into a car accident or he will get sick if you don't hurt yourself five times. Yes, he makes you suffer, but you don't want him to die, do you?" _The voice in his head is annoying. It's his own theory, a miscarriage of the brain.

_"This is stupid, he cannot die from this. Think sanely."_

_"Do you want to test it? According to the law of vileness, if it happens, you will be blamed. You will get your brother killed, will you survive this?”_

The sharpness of the figure pierces him five times, no more, no less. If Ciel does more or less, he cannot even imagine what will happen. Even the thought makes him tremble.

Gradually, the pain relieves the anguish. The emptiness turns into jello. And the jello in the chest is at least something. It is bliss.

Three lines. Five dots. Silence.

Ciel's doing everything right, which means he doesn't feel guilty anymore. If there is pain, there are no thoughts. Pain overshadows everything. Short or pulsating. Sharp, chaotically scattered over the body, like geographical points in an atlas. He will always accept it, like an act of vengeance against his own soul, which he sometimes wants to not only rip out, but also put back into the body of his embryo, into the lump of emptiness, for a metaphysical shell. A theory of probability. An accident is already a mistake. The most terrible thing is that there is no doubt about which one of them is one.

After half an hour, Ciel forces himself to go downstairs. First, he refreshes his face with cold water in the bathroom, then he finds a new newspaper in the kitchen and looks for an ad for special courses for secretaries.

He put the box back under the floorboard.


End file.
